Happy Birthday Cecily

Here goes the very last birthday tribute for this blog:

I love that I have the chance to write about my big sister today and it feels like such perfect timing. Cecily is absolutely a gift in my life and she may never fully realize how much she has shaped who I am. We are the best of friends but we didn't start out that way. During our childhood we butt heads a lot and didn't make many efforts to really hang out with each other. When I became a teenager though, I longed to be a part of Cecily's world. But our age difference of 5 years and different personalities seemed to really distance us. Because of that, it took some time for us to become close.

In the house we grew up in, Cec and I occupied rooms right across the hall from each other--if I stepped out of my bedroom door, I came face to face with her bedroom door--one which was usually closed if she were home. I distinctly remember one random night when I was probably 12 or 13 and I heard Cec playing some beautiful piano music on the stereo in her room--behind her closed door. I decided to knock and enter in to ask her what she was listening to. To my surprise, she beckoned me to come sit on her bed where she proceeded to tell me all about the songs and that they were written and performed by a fabulous, young musician named Jon Schmidt and how he was a Highland alumni and had played at homecoming assemblies and was a teacher to several of her friends, and so on and so on. I listened to everything she said with such awe--I loved all she had to a share about high school and friends and boys and really just about anything having to do with her fun, grown- up life. To me she really was the epitome of cool and hip and wise and pretty and popular. Our talk on her bed lasted through several songs and before long, it was late at night and time for me to go to bed. As I stood up to head back to my room, Cec offered to let me keep listening to her music as I fell asleep--she would just leave her door open a little and I could do the same. It was a simple offer but one that meant so much to me. It marked the beginning of us letting each other in--not only into each other's rooms but into each other's lives. The music tradition was one we continued off and on before she moved away for college. Now, when I think back on those peaceful nights with the music and light of my sister's room drifting into my own I realize just how lucky I was to have her sharing so much with me as I tried to find my way through my awkward and unsure teenage years.

Cecily and I have shared thousands of amazing memories since then: making up our silly snow queen dance one year after seeing the Nutcracker, sharing the blue Subaru and watching Princess Diana's funeral together during my Freshman year of college, bonding over study abroad experiences and then visiting our little sis during her own London adventure, running into each other at Target on Thomas and 44th St in Phoenix, braving the dressing rooms at H&M last January and each summer at the Nordstrom sale, and eating lunch together at least once a week for the past 6 years or so (SAKS, Paradise Bakery at Fashion Square, Einstein's, Rubio's, Cafe Rio, Village Baker, Arby's at Southtowne, Kneader's...). Oh, I could go on and on--and this list doesn't even touch on any of our kid/mommy based activities!! But it all just shows how much I love being around her.

Cecily is such a positive, loving, helpful force in my life. I love how often she volunteers to babysit my kids, how radiant her laugh and smile are, how great her taste in music is, how she laughs at all of Joseph's jokes (and he loves it too :) how easy it is for her to make friends and have children fall in love with her, and how passionately she feels about her family and her testimony.

I love you sis and could never ever imagine how bleak my little world would become without you there to light it up. You're among my favorite blessings every day. Have a fabulous birthday!!